You're Probably Overspending on AI Right Now
Your team has ChatGPT Plus at $20/month, someone added Claude Pro at $20/month, you've got a Zapier automation subscription running at $50/month, and then there's that marketing tool that uses API calls. When you add it all up, nobody really knows the total.
This is the most common problem we see with small business owners who adopt AI tools: they sign up for solutions piecemeal, lose track of who's paying for what, and end up with sprawling monthly bills that nobody's actually auditing. One client we work with discovered they were paying for four different AI writing tools that did essentially the same thing. Their actual spend was $340/month when they thought it was $80/month.
The good news? Most of that waste is recoverable if you know how to look for it. Let's walk through how to calculate your true AI costs and where to trim.
The Three Buckets of AI Spending You're Missing
Most people think about AI costs in only one way: the monthly subscription fee. That's a mistake because AI expenses actually fall into three distinct categories, and you need to track all three.
Bucket 1: Subscription fees. This is the obvious stuff. ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, Gemini Advanced, whatever you're paying monthly or annually. Write this down.
Bucket 2: API and token-based costs. This is where people get surprised. If you're using an AI tool via API integration (like using Claude through your CRM, or running ChatGPT queries through a Zapier automation), you're paying per query or per token. A token is roughly 4 characters of text. ChatGPT charges about $0.50 per 1 million input tokens and $1.50 per 1 million output tokens. If you're sending 10,000 API calls a month through your automations, that could be $50-200 in hidden costs that aren't in any single monthly invoice.
Bucket 3: Tool subscriptions that include AI features. Your email marketing platform has AI subject line generation. Your CRM has AI lead scoring. Your project management tool has AI summaries. These fees aren't labeled as
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